After memorizing SATLTSADW note-for-note in my head, I slipped away from FZ for awhile, but then a couple of friends of mine, incredible musicians, a guitarist and a bass player, re-introduced me to all the rest of his music. In the mid-Eighties, Frank, other than the Congressionial censorship hearings, really wasn't popular or well-known, eclipsed by a whole lot of big hair and synthesizer pads... so Hot Rats, Baby Snakes, Does Humor Belong in Music? Broadway the Hard Way, Thing-Fish and so on came sailing into my ears and life. I also had Alcatrazz's Disturbing the Peace album, which helped me re-connect Steve Vai to Frank's music and his role in it as 'stunt guitarist'... Us or Them, "Stevie's Spanking" "Ya Hozna".... it was a blast from the near past. I dig Frank's classical compositions too... have had Boulez Conducts Zappa for awhile... there's more but I'll finish here for now...

I was DUPED, I tell ya! No, kidding. I was first exposed to Mr. Zappa via this musing from my first bass player (I say it like that, as I am a drummer, and that although we never had sex - WITH EACH OTHER - we did fight like lovers.....) ANYWAY: He syas to me, he says, "Ya gotta listen to this bfart record". I says to 'im, i says' "B Fart?". He says, "No, Beefheart!". Ah!, I thinks to myself. "Play on!". He drops the needle (Ya, vinyl, kiddies). I am like, "Utility Muffic Research Kitchen", "I ride my pigmy pony over by the dental-floss bush"? He nods his approval. I return the nod as I soon realize this bassist is speaking in sync to every freakin' line of these tunes! Now,I have to learn them of course, and a couple of Heine's later? No problem!

Learned.Zappa.Lyrics.

Now, for the drumming. Oh, ya, that took more than a few beers and days, and months, and years of practicing odd times and such...genius.

College music students everywhere were adorning their graduate recitals with their renditions of Zappa tunes.

Later, Joe's Garage - learned the beats, the songs, the lyrics. Helped form a Zappa coverband called CONTRABAND (borrowed from my cousin, a bassist, who wasnt using it by then)

Years later I would learn of Zappa's earlier Invention years', his middle years (Shut Up &) from my 3rd guitarist, Kurt Michaels of Chicago...genius.

So, I guess it's not so much how I came to "know" Zappa, it's how did I miss it in Junior High?

I belive I have seen live concerts of almost every Invention and Ono sideman, outside of those bands, in their other bands, pre- and post-Zappa, but never had the chance or opportunity to see Zappa, himself, Live almost did at the Uptown theatre (and, later theater!) (Chicago) - where I would see, later, Stanley Clark, Brecker Bros., Cobham, DUKE, Chick Corea - ironically poked fun at by Zappa in later years, ha!

I first heard and saw Frank Zappa in 1968 watching one of my then very favorite weekly TV shows, The Monkees. I was seven years old and I thought the whole sketch with Frank & Mike Nesmith very funny. So by the time I was a teenager and into music, when someone mentioned the name Frank Zappa among a circle of music fans, I smiled and thought positively of him (the comment was about Zappa appearing with a cow in the movie Head). Of course, I had no real knowledge of his music, but I can honestly say that I never associated the name Zappa to ugly, gross and freaky, as most people at the time apparently did. I first heard a Frank Zappa album in 1975 or 1976. I was fifteen and a friend that lived in my building had an older brother who was a musician and a hippie. By then my parents had moved from Jamaica, Queens to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which effectively meant that I moved from the world that I knew, to this unknown third world (where things are really tough - as Frank once said). Anyway, while I was still learning the local language, this musician who I ended up becoming friends with asked me to translate this weird song from an album called Studio Tan. I tell you, I did not immediately fall in love with Gregory Peckary. There was just to much musical information for my teenage mind at that point of my musical evolution. I did like the humor though. Frank Zappa still made me smile. This musician friend also played me the Fillmore East album, wanting help translating it too and again, none of the music I heard, as far as I can remember, was anything I really could sink my teeth into. It was 1976, I was into Bob Dylan & The Band, America, James Taylor, Supertramp Fleetwood Mac.It wasn't until 1983, when a recent acquaintance of mine played me side one of Apostrophe(') that it started to really hit how awesome this music is. Then he immediately followed that up with Joe's Garage - Act I and that was it. The world suddenly started to rotate with a different angle. And I was forever hooked. I proceeded to hunt, find and buy every album in the available market, which in third world Brazil was not an easy task. Most albums, if you could find them, were imports costing as much as three times more than a Brazilian 'national' copy. In less than a year I knew more about Frank Zappa's albums and the music therein than this friend of mine did. I believe I have every Frank Zappa vinyl album made except Freak Out. Later I bought a lot of them again in CDs. I've never stopped listening to his albums since, although Zappa's music is not the only music I listen to. Unfortunate for me, I never got to see him playing live in a concert. By the time I moved back to the US, Frank had long since past away. But I'm happy that there is this wealth of material in a vault with the proper people minding it and releasing interesting material every so many years. Can't wait for The Roxy movie to come out in DVD.

Last edited by CK on Tue Dec 24, 2013 8:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

Anything that can generate a smile, I suppose. I am a big Kinks fan, so the embryo of it all has something to do with their play on the letter K when promoting the band. It doesn't really matter what it actually stands for, or if it should stand for anything in particular.The two letters together looks, well... Cinda Kool!

My girlfriend made me listen to the MOI when I was a sophmore high school. Specifically, it was Absolutely Free first, followed up by Freak Out.

_________________Everytime we picked a booger we'd flip it on this one winduh. Every night we'd contribute, 2, 3, 4 boogers. We had to use a putty knife, man, to get them damn things off the winduh. There was some goober ones that weren't even hard...

My girlfriend made me listen to the MOI when I was a sophmore high school. Specifically, it was Absolutely Free first, followed up by Freak Out.

My buddy had bought Absolutely Free when it came out so I went and got Freak Out thinking I was the one paying more for the double album. We'd listen to those suckers all day. The jocks called us hippies!!! That had become a big insult to us ZappaFreaks in the SF bay area who were into FZ or the New York VU - Warhol scene by then. Adults thought he was better than any SF hippie music too. BTW: Which FZ album did you buy next RN? It was Grand Wazoo for me. I must of got sidetracked for a year or two! I probably hit puberty and was never home or got into electric Chicago Blues at that time. Paul Butterfield-Mike Bloomfield, John Mayhall's Blues Breakers started me into a foray into blues music in general.

KK - I think I got WOIIFTM next, followed by Filmore 71. After that I bought everything the day they were released.

_________________Everytime we picked a booger we'd flip it on this one winduh. Every night we'd contribute, 2, 3, 4 boogers. We had to use a putty knife, man, to get them damn things off the winduh. There was some goober ones that weren't even hard...

KK - I think I got WOIIFTM next, followed by Filmore 71. After that I bought everything the day they were released.

Now I think my order went, Mothers Live '71 followed by Grand Wazoo and never looked back.The M'71 was popular amongst several of my other friends*, mostly for the humorous lyrics and Flo & Eddie's vocal antics. One or two musician friends were amazed at the guitar (FZ) and drums (AD) and became semi fans, so that was cool.

(*non- Zappaphiles, It would never cross they're minds to buy an FZ production of any kind...ever!)

~2003 or so I visited my local library and picked up some random cds. Among them was "one size fits all". Still my favorite Zappa. Others that I like are Grand Wazoo, Hot Rats, Overnite Sensation/Apostrophe(')...basically the middle period I guess?

i remember editing an 8mm film during my freshman year of college and listening to hot rats. i was deep into the mars volta and wanted something similar-jazzy and such. i didnt get it at first, i thought the melodies were too bombastic. a few months later i heard camarillo brillo and decided to give him another go and i've never looked back.

My father gave me a Terry Bozzio instructional drum solo VHS for X-mas in the mid 80's and got turned onto Joe's Garage by some friends, and as i became a Zappaholic my first listening was mainly the Eddie & Flo era- and 200 Motels and blossomed from that onward

I'm 29 years old now, finally living in NYC, where I've always intended to be. My first run-in with Zappa was as a young child in Lubbock, Texas snooping through my father's things. As I was pulling out, one by one, the records on his shelf, by the time I got to the end of the alphabet, I pulled out the Joe's Garage albums and what frightened of the cover art... something the about my baptist upbringing made me repulsed and afraid of the greasyness of the paint and the generally unconventional appearance of Zappa. It was like some Mephistophelian character pulling me away from my prudish, bible-bashing background. I was embarrassed to even admit that I had been snooping, so it was several years later before I ever brought it up, at which time my dad played me Apostrophe' and I was hooked. I guess he didn't think I was old enough for JG... by the time I was in High-school, I bought a Joe's Garage CD and listened to it non-stop on out-of-town school trips, imagining following Joe into the world of L.Ron HOOOOVER and plooking fem-bots until you wind up in prison playing my imaginary guitar solo. And for a long time, my mind was caught up in just these two Zappa albums, then when I moved to the UK and met more Zappa fans, came across Burnt Weenie Sandwich, and the earlier records, Freak Out, Absolutely Free, and We're only in it for the Money. I'm happy to say my dad, the original Zappa fan in my family, has allowed me to "borrow" all his Zappa vinyls as not too long ago, I bought an Audio-Technica to play music as it was MEANT to be heard. I know alternate between Roxy/Elsewhere, Over-nite Sensation, Apostrophe', One Size Fits All, The Grand Wazzoo, Just Another Band From LA, Zoot Allures, and a few others. I'm poor as shit right now, but as soon as I get some dosh, I have my eye on a vinyl of Uncle Meat at a record store in the Village... There is no artist I can think of that has inspired my musicality and philosophy more than FZ. Challenging censorship and venturing into politics in the way FZ did at the end of his life. I'm more encouraged by FZ to be an individual and make my own shit because I have something to say rather than being another victim of THE SLIME. The Meek Shall Inherit Nothin' is my new hymn, and Zappa's biography by Barry Miles is my Bible. When I'm in a pinch, it's "What Would Zappa Do?" But i'm not about to go and wear some tacky bracelet to push my opinion on everyone else. Maybe I'll just move to Montana...

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